Quarterback Myles Brennan Commits to LSU

LSU has its (first?) quarterback commitment for the recruiting Class of 2017 in St. Stanislaus (Bay St. Louis, Miss.) passer Myles Brennan.

A three-star with offers from Wisconsin, Cal, Kentucky, Vanderbilt and Indiana, the 6-3, 180 ranks 28th in the 247 Sports composite rankings at his position. He marks the sixth commitment for LSU in this class.

Brennan completed 63 percent of his passes for 5,248 yards last season, with 53 touchdowns against just eight interceptions. LSU is still considered the leader for four-star Lowell Narcisse from nearby St. James, so you have to wonder if this might affect that, although Cam Cameron and Dameyune Craig likely considered that. I do think LSU would like to sign two quarterbacks in this class, if possible.

Highlights

As you can see, Brennan plays in a shotgun-heavy Air Raid style of offense (although his stats should have given that away), but he has really nice feet in the pocket and shows nice awareness on his scrambles. His passes have a nice zip on them and he gets the ball out well off-platform. He'd definitely have to add some weight at the next level, and I wonder a little bit about his ability to really push the ball down the field, but ideally this class of quarterbacks will redshirt and compete for the job in 2018. It also looks like Brennan might need to work on trusting the pocket some, although a lot of his scrambles are under pressure. Still, seems like a solid pickup. We'll see what our other recruitnicks think.

Paul

My first impression here is the level of offers. Though he's not fielding a list of 100 offers from every power school in the country, it's an interesting mix of smaller schools with a couple of P5 sprinkled in. Wisconsin, headed by an offensive minded coach who has had some success developing QBs in Paul Chryst, and recently turned Joel Stave into a passable starter; Cal, whose head coach has success with QB development recently produced the likely no. 1 overall draft pick and Kentucky, whose co-OC Darin Hinshaw liked him enough to offer at Cincinnati and then Kentucky, where he's done good work with Gunner Kiel and Brendon Kay before him. These are coaches from a variety of offenses but that have all found recent success with QBs. This is something I like to see.

When the tape hits, the first thing that sticks out is just how lanky this kid is. He's got a long ways to go in the weight room. He's listed at 6'3, 180 pounds. I'm 2 inches shorter and 20 pounds heavier and most would likely describe as skinny. He's a rail. But that's okay, because as Billy mentioned, he's very very likely here to be QB B. I'm not even sure Brennan is a "we're bringing in two guys to compete" so much as "we're bringing in two guys: one elite QB and one guy we think has a lot of potential."

I don't mean to lay an egg on Brennan's skills here, either. Firstly, he actually moves around pretty well. He's not a gamebreaker as a runner, but he can break contain and flexes some mobility, which he apparently needs to behind a horse trash OL. He plays in an Airraid offense and still consistently finds himself needing to elude pass rushers. He does a pretty good job of staying composed against the rush. To echo Billy, the footwork is really nice to see. When he can, he does a nice job of resetting his feet and keeping a good throwing. You don't see him just flipping about and throwing the ball from all sorts of platforms. He's not Johnny Manziel and I mean that in the best way. Johnny was a special collegiate talent that could get away with poor mechanics and even poor decision making due to his immense creativity and athleticism. Brennan doesn't have the room to take those shortcuts and won't be.

I also like the zip I see on his balls. I'm not as worried about the ability to drive down field as Billy. His arm looks live enough, to me. There's a little float there, so I see what he means, but I think there's enough promise to go with his need to get bigger and stronger that we'll be okay. Mechanically, he needs to tighten some things up, but that's true of virtually ever HS QB.

Brennan is an interesting take. I'll be curious to watch this one play out. He's got other nice offers and if the staff can secure Narcisse will it cause Brennan to consider going elsewhere with less competition? The most important thing to me is that the staff continue to recruit other options, both in advent of Narcisse opting to leave state AND in preparation of Brennan decommitting even if Narcisse jumps on board.